ESA Science & Technology - Cosmic Vision

ESA's Euclid mission has reached another milestone on its journey towards launch. Its two instruments are now built and fully tested. These have been delivered to Airbus Defence and Space in Toulouse, France, where they are now being integrated with the telescope to form the mission's payload module.

ESA's Solar Orbiter mission lifted off on an Atlas V 411 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 05:03 CET on 10 February on its mission to study the Sun from new perspectives.

ESA's exoplanet-observer CHEOPS acquired the first image of its initial target star, following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020.

Six weeks after the launch of CHEOPS, ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, the telescope cover was opened as part of the mission's in-orbit commissioning.

The science instrument on ESA's Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, CHEOPS, was successfully activated on 8 January, marking the beginning of the mission's in-orbit commissioning.

Arianespace and ESA today announced the signature of a launch services contract for the Euclid satellite – with the mission's timeframe for liftoff starting in mid-2022 from the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.

The assembly of the flight model of ESA's JUICE spacecraft began in September, with the delivery of the spacecraft's primary structure, followed by integration of the propulsion system that will enable the mission to reach and study Jupiter and its moons.

This is the first entry in the Euclid Test Campaign Journal, a series of articles covering the main events during testing of the Structural and Thermal Model (STM) and Flight Model (FM) of the spacecraft.

An important stage in the development of ESA's Solar Orbiter mission was completed between May and June, when a series of tests to validate the electromagnetic compatibility and magnetic properties was carried out on the spacecraft's flight model.